


A Flower in My Hand

by Iron



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: But Only a Little Bit - Freeform, Lili is adorable, M/M, Punk!England, Wicca!AU, angsty, human!AU, it's all a big mystery, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-27
Updated: 2013-02-26
Packaged: 2017-12-03 18:19:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/701234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iron/pseuds/Iron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“My God,” the shadow across the fire sings, and the painting on their skin turn them from mortal to phantom, a symbol of what cannot be given shape in this mortal realm. Over the roaring of the fire and drums and screaming flutes, he can hear the forest whispering.</p><p>“My Goddess,” he answers back, deep and round, to the flutes that speak of endings and the drums that herald the start of something new guiding his feet. He doesn’t know who he is anymore; there is only the dance, the fire, and the Goddess that sings with him. </p><p>--</p><p>He's always been selfish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Flower in My Hand

A Flower in My Hand

 

The world smells like flowers. There is moonlight on his cheeks, starlight caught prisoner in his hair, fire in his eyes. 

He feels alive. 

Singing his joy at the top of his lungs, spinning-spinning-spinning, feet skirting over the ground, light as a feather, moving until it is like he doesn’t exist at all, like he has become more, more than mortal, more than a single, more than one, until he is everything, and everything is him. There are ashes in his hair, and the heat of the bonfire is dry against his skin. Inside his throat is parched, dust and bones, and though the horn of wine at his hip sloshes he does not drink from it. It is not time, yet. 

The others at his side – friends, strangers, brothers and sister, all – falter and fade. Their time in this song is done, and they fall back. There is only one, now, the Goddess to his God, and the horns at his temples are light where others would find them achingly heavy. 

“My God,” the shadow across the fire sings, and the painting on their skin turn them from mortal to phantom, a symbol of what cannot be given shape in this mortal realm. Over the roaring of the fire and drums and screaming flutes, he can hear the forest whispering.

“My Goddess,” he answers back, deep and round, to the flutes that speak of endings and the drums that herald the start of something new guiding his feet. He doesn’t know who he is anymore; there is only the dance, the fire, and the Goddess that sings with him. 

The music fades; the only sound is the clap of hands against thighs as the others keep time, and the pounding of twin feet against soft dirt, and the crackle-spit of the fire. Slowly, as though just awakening, the two stop their fervent dancing. All is still in the clearing. “Blesses be.” Their whispers rise like the sound of wind through the leaves, quiet with reverence. “Blessed be.” 

And with that, the trance is broken. 

Around the fire erupts with noise, people going for water bottles and digging out food to share around the dying fire. Lovino felt himself slowly sink back into himself, the magic buzzing beneath his skin slowly fading into the night. 

Skyclad but not bothered by it, he idly itched at the dried paint decorating his skin. The horned crown was heavy on his head, and he could feel the leaves and branches woven into his hair weighing him down. 

He smiles, and he can feel the warm embrace of his coven surround him. Lovino is warm, and safe, and loved. And if he could feel the coming storm, he feels no worry for it; it is not their way to weather such as this alone, for all that the coven is very much separate away from the Workings that are their haven.

 

…………………………

 

Lovino nodded as he watched with protective eyes the members of his coven enter the school, making sure each of them was safe in turn. There was the small girl, her bright green eyes shining, who always brought the best almond cookies to Feasts. He knew she had English first, and though he could almost feel her exhaustion from across the parking lot she waved to him, smiling. She smelled of smoke, and of sweet, flowery perfume she used to hide it. 

Then there were the blonde twins, who somehow at the same time managed to be introverted and extroverted, and who never paused to step forward and cast the circle. They split halfway to the main building, one turning left for math and the other continuing forwards to the gym, slinking into the arms of an all-too familiar albino. The Italian huffed – damn kraut, corrupting his boy. 

Next were the young Norwegian boy, huffing and puffing his way through the cold morning in his over sized jacket, and the menagerie of magical creatures that followed at his back. Lovino could only see them through a seeing stone, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. Even if no one could quite tell why they followed the boy around, it was usually good luck when they were. 

Lastly, and it always made Lovino frown a bit, when he realized how truly tiny their coven was, especially when he looked back and realized how crowded the workings seemed at times, came Arthur. They nodded to each other from across the parking lot, just a bare acknowledgement from the Priest to the Priestess, no mind that both were male. Arthur made sure everyone was happy, in that delinquent, English way of his, and Lovino made sure everyone was safe. It was a good arrangement, if a fine bit more unorthodox than most covens, and it worked. One of the benefits of being small, he guessed. 

He didn’t wait for the bell to ring. Pushing himself away from the car, he ambled up past the admin building and into the school, Feliciano having already gone ahead with his kraut of a boyfriend. 

It’s just another day. 

 

…………………..

 

All’s the same until second period – Lovino is going through the motions, one foot in front of the other, ignoring the way his teacher watches his back just a touch too closely. Between second and third he sneaks out behind the theater to watch the little girl smoke. It curls like death around her face, as blue as her dress, as the ribbon in her hair, drifting up into the haze that lies over the school. 

“You have one to share?” he asks her, their daily ritual. She jumps the same as every day, afraid that maybe this is the set of footsteps that catches her. She smiles at him, when she recognizes his dark hair and dark skin and gold-coin eyes. She smiles, white teeth against pink lips, and pulls one from her pocket, bent to the curvature of her thigh. 

He doesn’t light it. Taking it between his lips, tasting the sweet tobacco, he let them sit in silence. She’s the first one to speak. She always is. “Brother found my wand,” is how she starts, and it’s only out of long practice that keeps him from shouting at her. How could she be so stupid? “I dismantled it, of course. I wouldn’t put the rest of you at risk, Lovino. I promise.” It doesn’t help the knot in his chest ease, not the slightest. It doesn’t matter if she didn’t mean to. It mattered that because of her, they might all be in danger. He’s afraid, so goddamn afraid that it takes him a moment to say something without screaming, because screaming would help no one at all. 

“Did he-?” 

“No!” She insisted, fingers tight on her cigarette. “I told him I was studying them for science. He believed me. I swear! It’s just… Why do we hide, Lovino? I know, if I told him, that he would understand. I know it.” She said it in this little, broken voice, and if he were anyone else then maybe he’d give in, maybe he’d let her tell her brother, but he wasn’t. Their safety was everything, and sometimes it was even more important than their happiness. 

“Do you know the last Wicca burning happened just less than ten years ago?” he says, and can’t meet her eyes. She’s still so innocent. “She’d shown her brother her working tools, told him everything… and everything was fine, at first. For years, even. But then there were droughts and there were famines, and no one could explain why it was happening. The fields died, the cattle got sick. People, too. And her brother begged for her to save them.” 

She was captivated. “What happened?” She asks, smoke curling around her. She already knows, of course. But she does it anyways.

“When she couldn’t do it, he told. He accused her, in front of the entire town, of being a witch. And they burned her. In the middle of the fucking town square, where there were fuckin’ children watching, her own damn children down there with the rest of them, they burned her alive.” He bit down on the cigarette in his mouth, then, and tasted ashes under the tobacco. “They won’t even say her name, anymore. Didn’t even give her a grave. They just… forgot about her, like she didn’t exist at all. Like they didn’t kill her.” 

The girl stared at him, the edges of her lips turned down in a frown. “Is that the price?” She whispered, “The love of the Goddess and in exchange we have to spend the rest of our lives in secrecy? I don’t want that.” She says. The ash hangs off her cancer stick, long forgotten, cradled between her fingers. 

“We don’t have a choice.” 

The bell rings. She crushes her cig under her heel, and turns to leave, her dress swishing around her knees. “I already knew that.” Lovino stared impassively at her retreating back. 

She might have known it, but he doubted if she ever understood. That she ever would.

 

…………………

 

There is nothing that Lovino is ashamed of; he is cruel with reason, he reminds himself, even as he can hear the Brit comforting little Lili in the bathroom. He does not want to hurt anyone, but he must think of everyone. 

He’s always been selfish. 

Fingers trembling as he opens the door, and not simply because it’s the ladies room and he smiles at the girl. “Heard your brother wants to see you,” he says, and his face is grim. “You can tell him that you’ve been studying the witch trials in class. Tell him you sympathize with the women.” It’s not permission, not even close, but she looks at him, then, all big, wet blue eyes and puffy blonde hair, and smiles. “Hey, kid, don’t look at me like that. I’m still a hard ass, and if you tell anyone, brother included, that you do a little more than sympathize, you’re in so much trouble, got it?” He smiles, too, though, and stupid Arthur looks so grateful that she’s been given this little bit of permission that Lovino can’t help but feel a little better for it. 

It isn’t a quick fix, he knows that. She’ll want more and more and more until she’ll tell him, and then they’ll all be fucked. But hey, at least she stopped crying. 

Arthur leads Lilli out of the bathroom, and Lovino follows close behind. “Love,” the blonde said, when the girl has skipped up to her brother and out of sight. “That was rather a nice thing to do.” His stare was more than a little accusing. “You’ll get her hopes up, you know, and when her brother tells her that he wishes that they had all burned, she’ll break.” They are green, just like the little girls, rain soaked grass and witchfire and death caught up in mortal eyes. “That is what you said to me, all those years ago. Remember? You’ll cry and scream and no one will care, because you’re a witch, and no one cares if a witch dies. You came to me in ashes, in your mothers’ blood, with your brothers tears still wet on your collar, and begged me for a touch of magic. And you’ll give that girl the same hope that broke you?” 

There is anger in his voice, cold as the Gods’ snow. Lovino answers back, fire in his breath. “Merde! So she’ll learn to guard her secrets a little better! Mia madre morì di proteggere i suoi figli!” He’s screaming now, face hot and fists clenched at his side. It isn’t such an unusual sight, to see the oldest Italian brother screaming at someone, and especially not Arthur, but still students stop and stare at the sight. They want a fight. Lovino knows they want a fight. 

He won’t disappoint. 

The brown haired teen lunges at the blonde, face bright red and his pretty mouth pulled into a sneer, screaming “Bastardo!” the whole way. His fist collides with the others nose with a satisfying /crunch/. Something slick and warm runs over his knuckles. 

There are fingers in his hair, raking over his scalp and drawing thin lines of red hot pain over the skin. He scrambles, tares his head away and forces it into the others soft abdomen. Someone curses, and their feet go out from under them.

His head knocks against the hard linoleum floor, and red erupts from behind his eyelids. “Fuck!” the Italian cursed, and Arthur echoes him. There is a pause, a moment when neither move, either from pain or from simply not wanting to, and this is where the onlooking teacher finally breaks through the crowd. 

“That is quite enough, boys!” both teens winced, pulling themselves up. The woman's voice is grating, to say the least, and neither want to listen to the lecture they know is coming. Beside him, Lovino can feel Arthur stiffen in a way that he hadn’t when fighting the Italian. Proof that he wasn’t really angry at the other; he can’t blame him. Most of their fights were just for the hell of it, anyways. 

“Yes, ma’am.” Lovino mumbled, cowed by the mere presence of Headmistress Lud. Bitch was, well, a bitch. A damn scary one, too. 

Arthur, forever the delinquent, smirked. Everything was better when you added defiance of authority, after all. “Go tah ‘ell, you damn bint! This ain’t none of yer soddin’ business, so’s why don’ you take yer ‘igh ‘n mighty arse back to yer office!” He rolled to his feet, witchfire eyes alight with fury. He stared up at her- he barely reached her shoulder, and this was in heeled boots – roaring for another exchanging of blows. Lud was not, in fact, a tall woman. 

She sneered at him, looking all that more severe with her formal bun pulling at her features. “Hmph. Come along. Zee both of you.” She turned tight on her heels, not questioning that they would follow her, and pushed through the crowd of student their fight had attracted. Lovino climbed to his feet, defeated and angry for it. 

“You go,” Arthur said, a vicious smile splitting his face. This would be their third Headmistress in half that many years. “I wont to ‘ave some fun wit’ this moppet.” Stalking after the fierce looking woman, the red-haired punk was given quick passage. Having absolutely no doubt that the woman would be scared out of her job before she actually realized that Lovino hadn’t gone with them, he shrugged, painted a scowl in his face, and left. 

It wasn’t so unusual to witness Arthur's’ drastic changes in personality when confronted with authority – any authority – figures. Lovino entirely blamed that on the fact that the punk was a delinquent who was a good guy who in the end would always be a bad boy, if under the guise of a good boy’s clothes, and was therefore over-compensating. That, and the fact he was pretty sure the other boy liked to watch them flinch. 

The Italian shoved his way through the halls, going unnoticed in that way where he was because no one wanted to see him. It’s off to his next class, fucking math, he hates that subje- 

Someone stops him. “Lovino?” a tentative, accented voice asks. He freezes. Starts to turn. Stops. He knows that voice, doesn’t want to see that face. “Lovi?” The hand on his shoulder burns. “I saw the fight back there. Are you ... Are you alright?” His question hurts, like a punch to the gut or slap to the face. “You’re not hurt, tomatino?” 

Lovino doesn’t turn and look. He didn’t look, didn’t see that stupid worried frown where a smile usually was, or those green eyes dark with concern, or those cheeks, round and brown with a tiny flush to them. Instead he wrenched his shoulder from the others grip, face down turned, and grinds out “yeah, fine. Bastardo,” and hurries down the hall at twice the speed of before. 

It doesn’t matter, he tells himself, that the other doesn’t follow him. It doesn’t matter that his nose is bleeding and there’s a cut on his lip and his knuckles are aching, and it certainly doesn’t matter that there are tears running down his cheeks, now, because even if they weren’t there a second ago they’re from the fight, from the pain of hitting his head against the tile floor and nothing else. 

“Idiota Antonio,” he whispered, head bowed. “Bastardo Antonio.” Why couldn’t the Spaniard just leave him alone?

……………

 

It’s back to smoking behind the theater for lunch, skipping math in favor of bumming a pack of cigarettes off the blonde brothers – and, god, but how the hell did it come to that? Arthur’s damn bad habits had infected the entire coven– and sneaking a lighter off the French pervert. He’s always hated the bastard. 

The smoke tastes bitter, and, god, but couldn’t those two find some better cigs? “Cheap bastards,” he grumbled under his breath, the white little stick held tight between his fingers. The red ember glows softly as he taps away the excess ash, bright in the shadow of the brick building. The nicotine is calming, washing through his system like it was heaven sent. 

He should get to class. He shouldn’t have skipped in the first place. He can’t find it in him to care, though, so he sticks the cig back in his mouth and takes a long drag. Turning his head, he lets it drift from his mouth and nose slowly, not to savor the taste but feel of it in his lungs, his throat. It drifts away in the breeze. 

He stays there until the bell rings, going through half the pack, more than he usually smokes in a week. It feels good. He doesn’t want to stop. Flicking away the stub of his cigarette, crushing it under his heel, he sighs. Class was starting soon – he’d spent all of lunch and sixth period smoking. He had it with Feli, too, and goddess knows the little brat would squeal the moment he realized the other wasn’t in class. 

“Fuck it,” he groaned, slinging his bag over his shoulder and trooping off to his next class. 

 

Art – his least favorite and therefore the class he is currently doing his worst in – was just about as useless that day as it always was. Feliciano had latched onto him as soon as he’d entered the classroom, cooing and going on about whatever the hell the kid did when he started to ramble. Really, Lovino had learned to tune him out ages ago. “So, what are we doing again?” he directed the question at the sophomore across from him, his glare weighing heavily on the other. 

The sophomore, a small girl with brown hair and brown eyes, smiled sweetly at him. He could feel the edges of his frown twitch upwards; he could never find it in himself to be mean to a pretty face. “Ah, I think we’re doing charcoal sketches today. She, ah, she wants you to do things from memory – no models. So, um, we should probably get to work on that.” She ducked her head – what was her name again? Something that started with an ‘S’, or an ‘M’, he thinks – and stared at her own paper. 

Lovino frowned. What the fuck was he supposed to draw? A fucking tomato? The only reason he took this class in the first place was because Feli had begged him. He hated art, and all its affiliates, with a passion rivaling only his brother’s lover for them. God and Goddess knew that he couldn’t paint to save his life, and that he was too damn impatient for music, and that his photographs always came out crooked and blurred. 

He just wasn’t made for the ‘finer arts’, his grandfather had told him, trying in vain to preserve the young boys’ feelings. It hadn’t worked, but it had been enough to convince the younger that he really shouldn’t try at any sort of art. And really, he found enough in his Books of Shadows to keep him busy, anyways. It wasn’t like he needed to do something like paint, which made his grandfather so obviously happy. He didn’t. Really. 

Huffing his irritation, he none the less gets up to retrieve the requisite materials; just because he hated the subject doesn’t mean that he won’t do the damn assignment. He spread out his sketchbook in front of him, tap-tapping the unsharpened edge of his charcoal pencil against the smooth page. Well, fuck it, he might do the fucking assignment, but that didn’t mean he had to give a crap about it. 

So instead of doing the whole ‘careful planning’ shtick like Feliciano, because that had never been his thing, he dove right into the project. He drew a tomato. 

In all fairness, it was a nice looking tomato, only a little messy and smudged around the edges, with an actual discernible light source and a vague but not horrible back round. One of his better drawings and just difficult enough to satisfy the art teacher, so Lovino sets it aside and pulls out a book from his bag, slipping the leather cover from in between his Maths notebook and binder, not paying any mind to the embossed cover. He flicks through the smooth pages, baring no mind to the inked illustrations: beautiful pictures of plants and people, bright and sombre and utterly stunning, or the carefully scribed words, not stopping until he reached a blank page. 

He’d started doing it when he was little, for longer than he can remember, taking down notes and thoughts and pictures of whatever he was thinking, like he thought they’d mattered. He would have stopped, but it was probably the only thing that he had that was his. Everything else in his life, his Nonno, his friends, his home and his things, they had all been Feli’s first. But not this, this was Lovino’s, and that to him was precious and rare and he wouldn’t give it up without a fight. Not even if he hated it. 

The blank page stares up at him, the heavy paper pristine and pale in that way only a fine, good ream could be. Pulling a pencil from his pocket, tapping it against his lip, he lets his mind wander. It inevitably goes to the Spaniard. Just another reason to hate him, the boy guessed. Not that he needed one. 

It had started when he was a little kid, barely passing four, and still a part of the foster care system. He remembers being too little to even see over the edge of the damn chair, watching the Edelstein family take away his little brother, only for the older brother to be left behind again, like he always was. They’d – the brothers – lost contact pretty much after the younger had been adopted. It was months of moving from house to house after that, until the Fernandez family took him in nearly two years later, and he’d moved in with them. 

That’s when he’d met Anto – the tomato bastard. They’d already had one adopted son, and Lovino had tagged along beside him most of the time. He hadn’t been a nice little kid, but, to be fair, neither had the tomato bastard. The other was always bossing him around; expecting him to both of their chores, and making fun of him when he wet the bed, and Lovino fucking hated it. He’d hated the way the other boy would kiss his scrapes and hold him when he cried and comforted him when the doctors told him he had chorea, hated how when he broke things or knocked them over he would defend him from his father, hated how fucking nice the other was, because he knew he was faking. He’d just wanted the money in his bank account, after all. 

That’s all they ever wanted. 

“Fuck it,” he groaned at the blank page. His eyes darted up to the clock. Class was almost over, anyways. Shoving the leather book into his bag, back between the notebook and binder, he stood up with the rest of the robots, Feliciano still nattering away at him, and left. End of the day. He survived. Whoopee. 

He should be happier, but he can’t really make himself feel anything at all. Really, all he wanted to do was cry. And the day started out so well, he thought sarcastically, caught up in the current of people travelling down the hallway. He wasn’t in any particular hurry, though, not when he knew that he would be watching the parking lot for fifteen minutes, making sure everyone got out safe. No one wanted a repeat of Norge and Matthias, not like last year, so Lovino and Arthur sat outside every day after classes ended making sure everyone got out okay. 

The sky was over cast when he finally spilled out of the school, just on the edge of rain but not quite there yet. A smirk tugs at the edge of his lips. He loves the rain, the feel of it on his skin, the smell of it in his nose. And the fact that it inconveniences everyone else around him, too, of course. No one ever said he wasn’t a bitter little ass. 

Gold eyes scan the parking lot, easily picking out the members of the coven, though all of them look a little worse for wear than they did that morning. He sighs a little when he sees the twins, exasperated but expecting the chaos they seem to cause by simply existing. Mattie’s skin is purple; Alfred’s hair is bright, neon green and he looks more than a little like an Oompa Loompa. Really, couldn’t those two learn to get along?

“Idiota’s,” he grumbled, but watched with a warm feeling in his gut. They were more his brothers than Feli, in some ways. It didn’t take long for him to spot the other three: Norge was being harassed by a messy haired blonde; Lili was huddled in her brother’s sweater, curled into his side in their car; and Arthur was stalking behind the crowd, bright red hair and patchwork clothes standing out like a beacon. Watching each of them as they leave campus, he doesn’t move until he’s sure they’re unhindered, safe. 

Finally, only Arthur and he were left, loitering in the empty lot. “Does the fact that your brother left you behind without a second thought bother you?” Arthur asked, coming up behind Lovino. The other boy shrugged. 

“He has his own life,” he said tonelessly. Neither of them believed him, though neither would say so. Some things were better left unsaid. “And I don’t want to be a part of it, so leave it the hell alone.” He growled, and as an after thought, spat enough curses to make a sailor blush at him. 

“Yes, yes, fuck me. What ever, mate. I have some nice baggers ‘n mash waitin’ fer me at home, so you can stay here and brood. I am going to head out.” The Brit gave a jaunty wave, turned heal and ambled out of the parking lot. Lovino scoffed; goddess and god, but the other could piss him off just by existing. He still doesn’t know why they hung out together. 

He’s alone now. It’s dark, the sun setting low behind the mountains. The sky’s still choked with clouds, and he can feel a few stray drops. They’re freezing where they hit his bare skin, and after a moment they came harder, big fat drops that waste no time in soaking him to the bone. Lovino groaned. “Fu-uck!” he cursed, and hugging his bag to his chest darted out of the parking lot. It was a fifteen minute walk home; he wasn’t going to make it before he was absolutely fucking miserable. 

Just fucking typical. 

……….

 

Walking into his house, dripping wet and angry, is not as unusual as Lovino would like to think. Not that this ever happened to Feli; no, the little fucker somehow always convinced Nonno to pick him up after school. 

Shivering, because it had to be thirty degrees out there and he’d forgotten his coat like a fucking idiot, he quickly shed his sopping top and pants, moving through the warm Italian-style villa with such a complete disregard to his surroundings that could almost be commendable. He slipped into his room wearing nothing but his drenched boxers, the cotton clinging to every inch of skin they could find, and with the door closed behind him pulled those off, too. 

He carefully avoids looking at himself in the mirror hanging in the wall, attention diverting itself to picking out a clean pair of pajamas. Feli might be the only one in the house who could actually do the laundry with any measure of success, but usually Lovino did his own clothes. It was matter of pride. 

He hadn’t done them in over a week, though, so he grabbed a pair of sleep pants and an over large shirt from the floor that didn’t smell too bad, pulling them on to his way to his bed. His room is dark, but he can’t be bothered to turn on his bed side table. Instead the teen climbed into his bed, curled under his covers, and took his fucking siesta. He deserved it. 

 

The world is grey. His feet break through the thin ice shell with every step, leaving dark footprints with every step, and he’s walked right through the soles of his shoes. His teeth ache from the cold, and if he were human, his fingers would have long since gone black from frostbite. “Fuck you, Roma!” He cried to the sky, waving his fist at a dead man. “I’m the only one left, you bastard! They left me behind! Just like you, you god forsaken bastard!” His tears froze on his cheeks, on his lips, his teeth bared like an animals. He imagines that the old bastard could see him, raving and angry and hurt, hanging on by a thread to the little sanity he has left, and smiles. But then his mind turns away from his pending insanity, to more important matters. 

He thinks he is somewhere in the heart of what might have been Sweden, or maybe Denmark, and it is winter. Or maybe fall. He’d lost count of time around when he’d stopped searching for the European countries, and he hadn’t bothered to find any humans for months before that. It just hadn’t seemed important.

It’s all slipping away… He can’t even remember his brothers’ name. “Ve- Ve.” He whispers to the god that never listened, a forlorn cry for the sibling he can’t remember but knows he has to protect. Because Nonno told him to: protect your brother, Lovi. And he had- he would. He would find him, find them, the Ones That Do Not Die, who can only be forgotten, because if he doesn’t he will be alone. He will find them, even as he forgets what they look like, their history, his history.

All he knows now, in the snows of a country that makes his bones ache with the feeling of not his, is this: the world did not go out with a whimper; it did not go out with a bang. It went silently, the fading of great men with greater memory, one by one until there was no one left but Romano Italy, stupid cowardly Romano who watched the rest of the world go out like the stars did, on the day that never was. He held the hand of his brother, watched him sleep, broken and listless and eyes so open, after the death of Germany. A single moment, a blink of his eyes, and the bed was empty; there was no brother lying under the sheets. 

And Romano- Lovino- Italy- Vargas was finally alone. 

So he will never stop looking. The Nations were gone, but the people still remained. And with people came gods, came magic, came all the things that humans rarely saw but always, in some way, believed in. Nation-tans were this, the magic that humans created by simply existing, and they could not fall from existence, not completely, not when what they are, down to their bones, still remained. He can feel them, taste them in the air and feel them in the earth, and as long as he is, as long as he survives, he will keep looking. 

 

Lovino wakes up like he usually does, bolt up right in bed and screaming without making a sound. It’s been like this for as long as he can remember – for as long as he’s written in his journals, actually, or longer, and even if he’s forgotten most of them he knows they only really turned into nightmares a few years ago – and even if it shakes him up he’s enough used to it that usually he can put it out of his mind, and salvage the rest of the nights’ sleep. 

He can already feel the dream slipping away. Lurching to the side, his hand scrabbles around for a moment before finally locating a pen and notebook. Flicking on the light, he turns it to a blank page and starts scribbling, the ballpoint carving thick, black indents into the page. He’s worked himself into a frenzy by the time he’s done, tears running down his cheeks and he hates this, hates it because it makes him feel weak and stupid and like he can’t take care of himself, even though he’s done it for years with out anyone else’s help. 

But he finishes, and wipes the tears from his cheeks, and the stupid persistent itch that’s always at the back of his mind, like he’s just forgotten something important, fades a little. He feels better for it, actually. Still doesn’t like it, though. He’s learn to hate the good dreams as much has the bad ones, because no matter what he always ends up crying.

He tosses the notebook away without really looking at it, checking his beside table on habit, flinching when he realizes that dinner should be in another five minutes. Was Feli not going to wake him up? He hissed to his empty room, the usual feeling of being pissy and angry coming back two fold and worse than they were before he took his siesta. The fuck was with that? 

Tossing away the sheets, he staggered out of the room, down the stairs, and into the kitchen, where he could smell dinner cooking. His stupid fucktard Nonno was sitting at the dining table, his equally stupid brother at the stove, cooking what smelled like pasta but for all he can give a fuck it could be wurst, he was so hungry. 

He went to sit by his Nonno, a scowl disfiguring his face. The elder doesn’t acknowledge him, doesn’t even look at him, so Lovino turns to silently watch his brother cook. Knowing by experience that it won’t take long for the other to finish the meal, Lovino got to his feet, navigating through the large, spacious kitchen to the china cabinet and set the table. He hated doing it, but god knows that if he didn’t no one would, and they’d end up eating it straight out of the pot again. Idiotas.

Feliciano hummed as he carted the pot of pasta to the table, setting it on the scarred wooden table with a heavy thump. “Let’s eat!” he said with a decisive clap of his hands. The Vargas family happily dug in. 

Lovino took the smallest portion of the Italians, piling a portion of pasta the size of his fist on his plate. He knew how his brother and Nonno ate; they would eat the entire pot in less than half an hour and still be hungry. It was quite possibly the most disgusting thing in the world, only beat out by the time he’d found the results of his Nonno’s night out on the town in his bed. He was just happy he’d been away that weekend . . . Poor Feli, no wonder the kid was so screwed up. 

So he watches the two idiots, trying and failing to ignore the way they shoveled food into their mouths like they were starving. “Idiotas!” Lovino cursed at them, “Eat slower – you’re going to choke!” He slammed his fork into the wooden table, watching with a wicked sort of glee as the prongs sank down to the hilt. He knew this was an over reaction, but he couldn’t stop. He was just so angry, just so goddamn frustrated, and it felt so good to finally let it all out, the days anger building and building because, fuck, but he knew that they’d gone through hell and having him yell at them or burst out crying or some other shit would make it worse for them. 

Nonno just looked at him. “Lovino,” he said, disappointment heavy in his voice. “Why did you do that?” The man pushed his plate away, pulling the fork from the table with one hard /yank/. “It wasn’t very cute~” the man pouted. “I’m gonna have to send you up to your room so you know not to ruin the furniture any more.” Running thin fingers through his messy hair, the man sighed. “Why are you so uncute, Lovi~?” He whined. 

Lovino huffed. “Whatever, bastardo.” He wasn’t hungry, anyways- all he felt was drained. “I’m going to bed.” 

He stomped his way up the stairs, roughly slamming his door closed behind him. He collapsed on his tomato-covered bed, a gust of breath leaving his lungs, and hugged his tomato pillow to his bed. 

His room was white walls, brown carpet, and a mismatched furniture set that had been in the room when he’d moved in. The only personalization he’d done in the past five years was a few pictures on the wall and filling the bookcase. And the bed, of course; red sheets and bright green pillows, and one shaped like a tomato that had been a gift when he was a kid. It was nothing like Feli’s, and he liked it that way. 

The light was off. He didn’t have windows in his room – Feliciano had claimed that one – and with the door closed it was pitch darkness inside. He wasn’t afraid of the dark, not when he was in his space. He’d purified it, and blessed it, and written protections in oil and wax on the walls and floor and ceiling. He’d painted into the entryways lines of salt and burnt sage to keep the room free of spirits and ghosts. His room was probably the most protected room in the entire town; if something wanted to attack someone, they wouldn’t start with him. 

Lovino closed his eyes. He remembers, before Nonno had found them again, before he’d spent more time without his brother than with, before even the Carriedos’. 

He remembers, and dreams. 

He is young. He can’t see over the chair edge, yet, but Feli has been gone long enough that the elder barely thinks of him anymore. He’s living in a group home, six boys and seven little girls all his age or a few years older, now, and he’s grown used to caring for himself, for the others. 

He’s in the kitchen, making lunch for the little ones. The caretakers left hours ago, taking the oldest children with her, so it’s just the little kids, stuck in front of the television watching Bambi to keep them out of the way. 

Lovino – Romano, here, because it makes him seem older if nothing else – pulls out the container of ricotta cheese from the fridge. There’s the last of the flour already in a bowl on the counter, and he scrambles up on his chair and dumps the cheese in with it. He can’t remember who taught him to make pasta, but he knows how now and that’s all that really matters. 

He dug his fingers into the mash, mixing it until the dough was soft and sticky but not too sticky. 

Then he pulled out the glistening ball of dough, plopping down onto the counter next to the bowl. Pulling pieces from the ball and rolling them into long, thin cylinders, he cut them into bite-sized pieces with a flick of his wrist and a knife, too dull for the job but the only clean one left in the house. 

His arm twitched, a flash of silver, and suddenly there was red over the white, white counter top. “Oh,” the boy said, because the pain hadn’t registered yet. For a long moment he stared at the blood coating his hand and the counter, darkening from bright carmine at the edges to a deep, black red where it pooled in the cracks between the tiles. “Oh,” he moaned in pain, and tears pricked at the corner of his eyes.

He wanted to scream. He wanted to wail, wanted someone to come and hold him, someone to make all the pain go away. He knew no one would come.

So instead, choking down the sobs, he scrambled off his chair and dragged it to the sink. Climbing back up, his blood slick fingers slipped and scrabbled over the silver faucet. Finally the water was turned on, gushing white and sputtering from the worn pipes, over his bloody, flour-and-dough sticky hands. He watched the bright red water swirl down the drain . . . 

And felt the world go black. 

 

…………………………………………………..

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: 7,000 words! This is great! So I have a vague plan on where this is going, so that is good, and I should update every other week or so, but I don’t have an exact schedule. 
> 
> Some notes- 
> 
> 1\. The flashbacks might seem weird, and if you don’t like them tell me, especially of you don’t like them in dreams. That isn’t concrete; I can and will change them if they seem horrible or stupid. But they will factor in, so there’s no way to do away with them all.
> 
> 2\. If any of the characters seem OOC, or something seems incorrect, feel free to tell me!


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